A-Z GUIDE TO MOVIES AND TV SHOWS PARODIED BY MAD, CRACKED, CRAZY, ETC. UP TO 1996. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. SPOILERS AND OTHER NON-SEQUITURS, TOO. SOMETIMES THESE THINGS HAVE WORDS OR SITUATIONS WE DON'T USE ANYMORE. YOU KNOW, 'CAUSE THEY'RE OLD.
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WORSTWORLD
Crazy #5, July 1974
w: Marv Wolfman
a: Bob McLeod
Before Michael Crichton created the blockbuster franchise of movies about robot dinosaurs gone rogue with Jurassic Park, he created a movie about robot humans gone rogue with Westworld. This was a science-fiction film about the Delos corporation, the business behind Romanworld, Medievalworld, and Westworld, amusement parks where you can live out your fantasies in one of these worlds that simulated life in the historical past.
The movie begins with a commercial for the Delos corporation hosted by Ed Wren (Robert Hogan) introducing the audience to these parks and interviewing exiting guests for their reactions to visiting these parks. Then we see Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) flying in to Wetworld and being served by a stewardess who may or may not be a robot, showing how lifelike the simulations at the parks really are.
Everything at Westworld is realistic. The food, the lodgings, the bars, the prostitutes, but only with conveniences up to a hundred years old. You can have gunfights but you can tell the difference between a robot and a real person because the guns are programmed not to work on real people.
Technicians are supervising everything in all the parks to make sure everything goes smoothly and recalling any models that don't work. Things start to go wrong when Peter kills one of their models in a gunfight (Yul Brynner) and it keeps coming back.
Peter shoots the gunslinger yet again and is sent to jail for it. He's able to blast his way out and he and John flee to the desert. (Not shown: Robots start disobeying guests and rebelling in Medievalworld). Peter and John return to town and John is shot and killed by the gunslinger, who chases Peter out into the desert again. We see it from the gunslinger's point of view.
Peter escapes into the laboraratory, then to Medievalworld, where all the guests and technicians have already been killed. Peter destroys the gunslinger by throwing sulfuric acid on him and setting him on fire, which finally defeats him after several attempts to get up.
references are made to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Henry Kissinger.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)
dir: Irvin Kershner
MAD #220, January 1981
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker
Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) is now leading the Rebel Alliance after they've destroyed the Death Star. Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is being hunted and is about to leave to find Luke Skywalker.
Han leaves on a tauntaun, a camel-like beast. Meanwhile, Luke (Mark Hamill) is has been captured on the planet Hoth. In his delirium, he sees the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness) who tells him to go to the planet Dagobah to look for Yoda who will train him to be a Jedi knight. Han Solo finds Luke and cuts open his tauntaun to keep Luke warm.
Luke and Han are found and Han and Leia's love/hate relationship continues.
Darth Vader finds the Rebels which he goes after with Imperial AT-AT Walkers. The Rebels cannot outrun or shoot the Walkers, but they defeat one by tripping it.
Han Solo flees with Leia, Chewbacca, and C3P0 into the Millenium Falcon and loses most of the Imperial fighters who are chasing them in an asteroid belt. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker has landed on Dagobah with R2D2 in search of Yoda (Frank Oz). Finds Yoda he does and the first lesson he learns is patience.
The Millenium Falcon has been hiding in a cave and it turns out all along the cave was a creature, which they narrowly escape. Vader demands the Falcon be found. Luke continues his training, but has to leave when he has a vision of his friends in peril.
Han and company hide out in Cloud City on the planet Bespin, welcomed by Han's old friend Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams). Natives of Bespin have taken C3P0 apart when nobody was looking and Chewbacca is trying to put him back together. Lando was forced to sell out Han and his crew to Darth Vader and now they have captured Han until they can get Luke.
Luke has come to rescue Han and friends, leading to a big light-sabre fight between him and Darth Vader. Vader give Luke a chance to give up and join forces. Then Darth gives the iconic "I am your father" line, and rather than join, Luke jumps out into space, but is rescued by his friends. The hand he lost in battle is re-attached (That's Ben Casey and Dr. Zorba in the middle panel) leading to the cliffhanger ending for the next installment.
The Germans saw it like this. They used the original Jack Rickard painting and put more around it.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES OUT
Cracked #173, November 1980
a: John Severin
What's not revealed in the MAD version is that Yoda strings Luke along before revealing himself, and decides Luke is not patient enough to be a Jedi, until Obi-Wan's apparition intervenes.
Of all the parodies of the movie there were, this was the only one to feature Boba Fett.
This was the issue after that.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES OUT
Crazy #66, September 1980
w: Paul Kupperberg
a: Bob McLeod
It makes sense Crazy would have their Empire Strikes Back parody before the others since they were published by Marvel, which had the license to Star Wars.
The same gag as MAD of using the force to imagine Hoth is a beach.
You can tell this was done before the movie was released by their drawing of Yoda.
Darth Vader reveals himself to be Mork, who I would not have known was Mork without the 'Nanoo Nanoo' added.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES OIL
Sick Special #2, 1980
a: Jack Sparling
UPDATE:
THE EMPIRE STRIKES OUT AGAIN
Biggest Greatest Cracked #15, Fall 1980
a: Samuel B. Whitehead
Cracked usually didn't have original articles in annuals, but they did here.
I didn't note before that Mark Hamill got into a car accident between Star Wars movies. That's the 'new nose' joke.
THE BLECH HOLE
Crazy #65, August 1980
w: Paul Kupperberg
a: Bob McLeod & Klaus Janson
Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster), Lt. Pizer (Joseph Bottoms), Dr. Durant (Anthony Perkins), Dr. Kate MacRae (Yvette Mimieux) are the crew of the starship Palomino, and about to return to Earth when they discover a black hole.
Also on the monitor, the robot VINCENT (Roddy McDowall) discovers the spaceship Cygnus, long-thought lost, which had Kate's father in the crew.
The crew minus Lt. Pizer, and including embedded journalist Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine) investigates the Cygnus.
Everyone on the Cygnus was presumed dead, but they find commander Dr. Reinhardt (Maximillian Schell). The Palomino crew is skeptical of Reinhardt's theory that the Cygnus can fly through the black hole and are suspicious of that ship's faceless drones.
In the parody, the other side of the black hole is Disneyworld. Apt since The Black Hole was a Disney movie.
Crazy was published by Marvel, which is now part of Disney, so it comes full circle. Kind of like a black hole.
Missing from the parody is OLD BOB, voiced by Slim Pickens, an older prototype of the VINCENT robot.
There was also this ad in William Shakespeare...Movie Critic from MAD in # 224.
